


The Patient

by ThornWild



Series: Moments [15]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Episode: s07e11 Showtime, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 18:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThornWild/pseuds/ThornWild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy has just rescued Spike from The First, and he is unconscious in her basement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Patient

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately after _Showtime_.

Spike’s eyes are closed. He’s lying on his back, on a make-shift bed they’ve set up in the basement. His naked torso is covered in cuts and bruises, as is his face. His hands are cuffed, chained to the wall.

Up until a few moments ago he was thrashing and moaning, delirious, seemingly plagued by fevered dreams and hallucinations, except of course that he didn’t have a fever. He can’t. Now, he looks peaceful. He finally fell asleep. He’s not breathing. He looks and feels dead, which he is. 

Buffy sits down gingerly on the edge of the cot, trying not to wake him. He was moving around so much before that she hasn’t had a chance to clean his cuts. Not that they can become infected or anything, and he’ll heal on his own, but it does seem like the sort of thing that she should do. She has a shallow metal basin in her lap, filled with warm water, and a wash cloth. Very carefully, she cleans the dried blood from the ceremonial cuts on his chest. He does not stir.

She wonders fleetingly if they will scar. As a rule, vampires don’t get scars, but Spike already has one, delivered post-mortem, on his left eyebrow. He got it from the Chinese Slayer he killed during the Boxer Rebellion. He told her that once. 

When she found him in the cave, he didn’t believe it was her, at first. Not until she cut him down. The relief and gratitude on his face just then… The way he looked at her when he realised that it was really her, that she’d come to save him at last, very nearly broke her heart. He kept his strength up long enough for her to get him home, but collapsed almost the moment she got him through the front door. As she was still injured from fighting the Turok-Han, she needed Xander’s help to carry him down the stairs into the basement.

Unthinkingly, irrationally, Buffy brushes a lock of Spike’s hair, normally held into place by massive amounts of hair gel but now loose and disheveled, away from his brow and, leaning down, places a kiss there. She is very grateful that it doesn’t wake him up.

* * *

Spike opens his eyes, slowly. There’s a dull ache in his head. As he shifts a little, he feels a similar ache in his muscles, and he groans. Wincing in pain, he turns his head a little. She’s sitting in a chair next to him, looking at him. He smiles, in spite of the pain.

‘Buffy,’ he murmurs, his voice rough and hoarse, and he coughs.

‘Hi, Spike,’ she says softly, returning his smile. She shifts the chair closer to the cot. ‘How are you feeling?’

Spike winces again. ‘Like I’ve been tortured for days,’ he says grimly, though there’s a twinkle in his eye.

‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ says Buffy, looking at her hands. ‘I wish I could have come for you sooner… I wanted to, but…’

‘You came, that’s all that matters,’ says Spike. ‘It’s more than I deserve.’

Buffy shakes her head and looks at him. ‘That’s not true,’ she says. ‘I meant what I said, before the Bringers came… I believe in you. You’re a good man, Spike.’

Spike smiles grimly. ‘I’m not that,’ he mutters. He tries to lift his hand, and notices the heavy shackles around his wrists. ‘You always did like having me in bondage, love.’ He looks up at her, an eyebrow raised.

‘Just a precaution,’ says Buffy, a barely noticeable tint entering her cheeks, and she pulls a key out of her pocket. She unlocks the shackles, and Spike flexes his fingers experimentally. His hands still work.

‘Thanks, pet,’ he says. He clears his throat, and closes his eyes again, for just a moment, he thinks. But when he opens them again, the light in the basement has changed. Buffy’s still there, though, sitting vigil over him.

‘How long was I out for?’ he asks. 

‘Couple of hours,’ says Buffy. He realises that she’s holding a warm, wet cloth to his brow, and he smiles again.

‘Haven’t you got anything better to do, love?’

She shrugs, removing the cloth. He sighs as the warmth goes away, leaving him cold and dead once more. There’s silence for a moment, and he listens to her heartbeat. It’s steady, if a little quicker than normal.

‘Thank you,’ he says, after a moment. ‘For, you know… The First, every day, it told me you wouldn’t come for me, but I knew you would.’ He gazes up into her green eyes, trying to show her how grateful he really is, trying to make her understand what this means to him.

She smiles at him, and touches his shoulder with her warm hand. He wants more of that warmth, wants it to burn him, brand him on the inside. He knows at that moment that there will never come a day when he won’t want her, won’t love her. But he refuses to let her know that. He knows that she doesn’t feel the same way about him that he feels about her, and he can accept that now. So instead he smiles back at her, lies back and closes his eyes.

A moment later, he’s out cold again.


End file.
